Aspects of the present invention relate to decision making, and more particularly to a method, system and computer program product for autonomic group decision making using impedance scores.
Reaching convergence in a decision making process between two people or many people can be a difficult and challenging task. Reaching convergence or a consensus may be exacerbated when the decision making process involves multiple sets of decision options and the participants in the decision making process may have competing interests, wants or needs. Decision making processes may typically follow one of two methods, an originator's preference model or a polling/voting model. The originator's preference model may be driven by a preference put forth by an individual originating the decision making process. For example, a meeting time may be proposed by the person who wants to schedule the meeting and the other meeting participants or invitees may either accept or reject the proposed time or times. If rejected, the “solution” (calendar entry) may be modified (moved/rescheduled), resulting in the same fundamental behavior, i.e., a new solution or meeting time is proposed and the other participants either accept or reject the new time. The process may continue in this inefficient manner until a consensus or solution is reached. In the polling/voting model a person, typically the originator, may submit a number of proposals for other participants to vote on the different proposals. Such processes are inefficient and do not provide any social, behavioral or group dynamics information for facilitating the group decision making process.